An astonishing poll. Australian immigration policy might reflect the desires of social romantics and the “unlimited-diversity” theorists living primarily on the left of politics but it does not reflect the views of most Australians. On Muslim immigration, most Australians seem closer to Pauline Hanson or Donald Trump than to the immigration policies of Labor or the Liberal Party. 50% of Australians favour a total ban on Muslim immigration to Australia.

To be clear I disapprove of these attitudes and do not share them myself. But I do recognise the attitudes as real. The question: when should a country pursue an immigration policy that is not backed by most people constituting that society?

A question without an obvious answer since immigration policy has not traditionally reflected a democratic consensus. The consensus there was lay between the two major political parties who agreed via an under-the-table not to be partisan on this. This will not last.

Would you believe that, starting in the very early 1900s there were active women’s anti female suffrage groups and leagues in the UK, the USA and even Australia (it was too late in NZ, female suffrage commenced in 1893).

I haven’t seen any definitive numbers – they don’t seem to have done much by way of national polling back then – but I’d expect that there was a fairly small number of women pro female enfranchisement, a similar number anti female enfranchisement and the majority were most likely “Don’t Know (Don’t Care ?) “. Should we then have not proceeded with female suffrage until we got a majority in favour ? And should women have had a vote in determining whether women should have the vote ?

But why do you think it astonishing that as many as 1/3rd of ‘Greens’ disfavour Muslim migration ?

Anyone who has not seen Oliver Stone’s Snowden should not miss it. I think it is only showing at a few independent cinemas until Wednesday. I am going to see it for a second time tonight. Information about Snowden can be found here.

Was it just an accident..bad enough. Or is something more sinister involved involving the US, ourselves and ISIS?

…

paul, links to other material about Deir Ezzor (you spell it ‘Deir Al Zor’) and the whole Syrian conflict will be found by following the link above.

In March 2011, after several dozens of police and soldiers, armed only with batons, were killed by supposedly unarmed protestors, the Syrian government rightly feared that, unless they acted decisively against the insurrection, Syria would soon endure what Iraq endured between 1990 and 2009 as a result of two criminal wars and the illegal sanctions in which Australia participated. Many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in that time including 500,000 children.

Just as Australia almost endured a foreign invasion in 1942, Syria has been faced with a foreign invasion in the last five and a half years.

In Syria, the situation is much more serious than anything faced by Australia in the Second World War: tens of thousands of takfiri terrorists, armed and paid for by the US, its European allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc., have entered Syria through Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. As a result of that invasion, around 400,000 Syrians have died, including 80,000 soldiers. Compare just the 80,000 military dead alone to the 27,073 Australians who died in the Second World War or the 60,000 Australians who died in the First World War.

Even if we were to accept the ‘explanation’ for Deir Ezzor – that they thought they were attacking Islamic State (IS) and not the Syrian Army – given by the United States, and their Australian, British and Danish accomplices for the Deir Ezzor bombardment, the attack was still a violation of Syrian national sovereignty.

However, as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad explained on 22 September in an interview with RT, the attacks, which lasted for one hour and which were immediately followed by a ground attack on the besieged Syrian Army defenders by IS fighters, were intentional: “How could they know that America was going to attack that position in order to gather their militants right away and attack it one hour after the strike?” he asked.

Clearly Australia and the US, contrary to their supposed abhorrence of IS, is supporting that very same IS against the Syrian government. The cover story for now siding with IS against the Syrian government, previously stated by some mainstream media ‘reporters’ is that for all its brutality, the “Assad regime” is even more brutal than IS.

According to reports which have yet to be confirmed or denied, immediately after the Deir Ezzor attack, Russia responded by taking out, with a ship-launched Caliber rocket, 30 Israeli, Turkish, Saudi and Qatari officers in an intelligence post illegally located inside Syria outside Aleppo. If this is true, the United States global bully may have learnt that there is a cost to be paid for such blatent acts of aggression.